All my adult life I have loved history. Interest in other subjects came and went, but history always remained. I love documentaries and feature films about history, light books "about those times", essays on famous people and events, scientific works, the history of the Indian wars, memoirs of great people, books about great people written in our time, etc. , to infinity. My love for history even somehow led me to the Olympiad in history, which I, by some coincidence, won by writing an essay-reasoning about the first State Duma.
But I never understood why I love history. Not to say that I was very worried about this misunderstanding, but still this question periodically arose in my head. Each time I came to the conclusion that it was just some kind of innate inclination, like some people's love for chocolate, socializing, adventure or the color red.
But now, the other day, while reading The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, I understood everything. Including I realized that I understood everything a long time ago, and laid it out on the shelves, only the last brick was missing. Immediately, all the arguments that I had formulated for myself during my life, regarding the history and materials about it, surfaced immediately in my memory.
I will not talk about all kinds of materials, only about one thing - books. I will try to tell you why reading old stuff is better and more useful. I do not pretend to the highest truth and full disclosure of the topic, I simply state my personal thoughts.
Products
I'll start with the reverse side - the shortcomings of modern books. It is “books” that are now published in small numbers, because they have been supplanted by “products”, with all the ensuing consequences.
You know well what a product is. This is some crap for which characteristics are determined. Market, segments, audience, lifetime, age restriction, functional requirements, packaging, etc. Sausage, online services, underpants, and books are created like products according to the same laws, with differences in production and marketing methods.
The product has a single purpose - sales. This goal defines how a product is conceived, born, lives and dies. The same goal determines the criteria for assessing the quality of the product. Selling is good, not selling is bad.
When you have already sold out, you can talk about other values. A good example (though from a different field) is the films of Christopher Nolan. On the one hand, they sell well – very well. On the other hand, they receive awards, high marks from critics and viewers.
The sale of a product is like a trigger, after the overturning of which you can discuss everything else. Entrance ticket to the world. Accordingly, when reading a modern book, one has to take into account its “productivity”. The author wrote it to sell. It literally bleeds through every page.
Flow
It's no secret that now all the information, or rather, the content is lined up in streams. With the development of the Internet, it would not have been possible otherwise. There is so much content being created that it is impossible to manage its elements - only flows, as a kind of entity of a higher order.
Just look at any popular site or service that provides text or video content and you will see these streams, whatever they are called. Hubs, channels, headings, categories, trends, playlists, groups, feeds, series, etc.
Flow control using artificial intelligence or machine learning is becoming increasingly common in order to make it as easy as possible for the consumer to find the right content and keep his attention on the resource for as long as possible. attention is converted into time, and time is monetized.
The streams have long since become endless. As Maxim Dorofeev asked in one of his speeches, did anyone manage to read the Facebook feed to the end?
I do not want to say at all that flows are some kind of evil, and they must be fought. Of course not. This is an adequate response to the multiply increased amount of content. And then the feedback worked - people got used to the streams, it became more convenient and familiar to them, and content producers also reorganized. Who made films, began to create serials.
I talked about streams because, in my opinion, they have a detrimental effect on content.
For example, articles. In a thread, the lifetime of an article is several days, usually one. She can stick around in some rubric - first "New", then "In the spotlight" or "Reading now", if you're lucky - "Best of the week" or something like that, then it will flash in the mailing list and attract some more attention to itself . On some resources, sometimes, an old article may accidentally pop up, but this rarely happens.
And now imagine the author of the article, who knows that his offspring will live for several days. How ready will he be to invest in this offspring? And how many articles will he write before he starts calling the brainchild a product?
At first, of course, will try. I often saw comments from novice authors about how they spent a week, or even a month, writing their article, proofreading and editing it, collecting practical material, looking for suitable media materials, etc. And then they faced a harsh reality - their offspring was allowed to stand on the stage for only a minute, after which they were driven away. Several people followed, asked to perform something else, but after standing and listening for a while, they still returned to the auditorium - to the place where the stream was being shown.
Most aspiring writers give up this business, thinking that something is wrong with them, or their articles. They take offense at unfriendly venues, reproach themselves for mediocrity, and swear to never write anything again.
Although, it is enough for them to understand that their article is in the stream, and there are no other rules. You can’t be in the spotlight even for a week, even for reasons of honesty - there is only one stage, and there are darkness who want to stand on it.
Those who understand the essence of the work of threads, and the mechanisms for managing them on a particular site, can become a permanent author. Only articles will now become products, or at least content. Quality requirements will have to be reduced, for purely economic reasons. Well, there really is no objective point in spending a week on an article and earn as much as that guy who spent 2 hours over there (to earn - it doesn’t matter what, at least likes, at least subscribers, at least read more, at least rubles).
Dreams of how the article will become a cult, or the most cited, or someone will print it and hang it on the wall, or even solemnly inscribe it in the hall of fame of some library, quickly pass. All articles that pass the stream are sent to almost nowhere. They will be remembered by search engines and a few people who have added them to bookmarks in order to re-read them later (not the fact, of course, that they will re-read).
Streams of books
We return to books. They also lined up in streams, living according to their own laws. Especially now, when e-books and services for their independent creation, distribution and promotion have become widespread. The entry threshold has disappeared - now anyone can create a book, it will be assigned an ISBN, and all decent sites will start selling it.
Books have already become extremely close to the rest of the content, and are being rebuilt under the new rules. Unfortunately, quality invariably suffers, for the same reasons as articles.
The book will not live long in the flow, it is a reality. Even if it comes out on paper, it will be only in quantity to satisfy the demand created by the author and marketers. Then the stream will take away the book of non-existence.
All this means that it makes no sense for the author to try when writing a book. Neither artistic value, nor bright humor, nor a stunning plot will save. Now these are not characteristics of a literary work, but functional requirements for a product that affect market share, lifetime, NPV and SSGR.
For us readers, lining up books in streams does not bring anything good, alas. First, lowering the quality will cause us to waste time reading in vain. Secondly, the multiple amplification of book flows greatly complicates the search for at least something useful - especially considering that there are no texts of books on the Internet, and search engines cannot adequately answer whether a book suits us or not. Probably, soon there will be systems of intellectual selection of books according to the interests of the reader.
With the quality of the books, the story is already coming out funny. Take, for example, any book published by MIF and open it on the last pages - you will find blank sheets entitled "New Ideas". And there is a technique of one of the founders of this publishing house, thanks to which these sheets appeared in books. In short, the quality of a book is measured by the number of new ideas that arose while reading it.
I will not discuss the methodology itself, the fact of its appearance is interesting - this, again, is an adequate reaction to building books into streams. Here the quality is assessed, and some kind of ranking is performed. Although, personally, I probably would not evaluate books by the number of new ideas, despite my love for numbers and measurements. Simply because ideas are the fruit of a person's mental activity, and their appearance or absence during reading may not correlate with the book in any way. Someone after Dunno will write two sheets of paper, and someone big Soviet encyclopedia will not wean them from eating boogers.
So, it seems to me, the books of modern authors have already ceased to be books. They have become content and product. Similarly, the songs ceased to be songs, but somehow imperceptibly became tracks. Even seasoned rockers, like Andrey Knyazev, now call the results of their work tracks.
I suppose that publishing houses will soon disappear as a business - there will be no need for them. There will be authors, proofreaders, editors, e-book selling services, print-on-demand, and book printers. I found a book, bought an electronic one for 100 rubles, read it, liked it, ordered a paper one, 100 rubles were deducted from the final cost. Maybe even the layout of the book of your choice will appear - I pushed articles on the selected topic into the basket, the service itself designed them into a book, made a table of contents, placed my photo on the cover - and printed.
My relationship with streams
As I have already written above, I do not condemn the flows themselves, as a phenomenon. It is a part of reality that has arisen in response to changes in another part of reality. A new format for providing information appeared, which, in turn, gave rise to rules and practices for managing flows, monetization, attracting consumers and authors. But personally, I try to avoid threads.
It is, in general, about all the flows of information. I objectively understand that they contain a lot of useful and interesting information, but I don’t want to spend a lot of time searching for it, analyzing it, putting it into practice and formulating conclusions - this is inexpedient and inefficient.
But the main problem is not in efficiency, but in the unpleasant feeling that you are a cow on a farm, or a squirrel in a wheel.
I spent the first 16 years of my life in a small village. There were few books at home, but there was a library in the village. I still remember with pleasure how I came there and chose what to read to me. This process of choosing could go on for hours. Fortunately, there are not many lovers of reading in the village - people love to swell more and more, so the choice of books took place in complete silence.
The librarian was very helpful. Firstly, she was a very smart and well-read girl - she graduated from school with a gold medal, then with honors from the Institute of Culture, but some wind brought her to our collective farm. Secondly, she once went to school with my older brother, and a good attitude towards him was projected onto me - she helped, prompted, did not swear when she did not hand over the books for a long time.
So, the choice of the book, i.e. information to study, I enjoyed as much as the process of subsequent reading. Neither the books, nor the shelves, nor the entire library, nor its owner needed anything from me. The work of the library was not monetized in any way - everything was free. Nobody dragged anyone there with marketing tricks.
You come to choose - and you feel like the owner. Not books or libraries, but situations, conditions, freedom of choice. I came myself because I decided to come myself. You can leave when you want. Nobody is pushing you for anything. The authors of most of the books are long dead. The librarian frankly doesn't care if you take ten books or none. Sheer pleasure.
What about the flow? The owner of the resource needs from you, in fact, one thing - activity. Any kind.
Write articles, read articles, comment on articles, comment on comments, rate articles, comments, authors, commentators, repost, read to the end, be sure to subscribe to come back and be active on a signal.
Feeling like you're being mined for money. Just went through the door - bam, and some equipment was imperceptibly hung on you, and the owner began to earn money from you. You sit in the corner - almost no money comes in, and they bother you, they invite you - let's go, dance, or sing in karaoke, or clean someone's face! The main thing is to be active!
It seems, formally, I came myself. It seems that I read something and find something useful for myself. Sometimes it happens to interesting people to talk to. Rarely, but even new pleasant acquaintances appear, or even business contacts. But the unpleasant feeling remains - after all, they are mining, assholes.
They brought me like an animal, put me on a wheel, showed me a bait - like “read, read, there is definitely useful and very valuable information somewhere!” - and stepped aside, connect the next lucky one. And I run until some physical obstacle stops me, like the end of the working day, a deadline, or an already irresistible desire to sleep.
Streams suck, regardless of the degree of awareness. That is, of course, different resources - with different strengths, but I, from my own experience, defined it this way: there is always a flow that will overpower you. They are too strong - this is not some kind of metaphysics, but the result of the work of a huge number of very intelligent people. Well, those who come up with algorithms for selecting interesting content, write articles, shoot videos and TV shows, etc.
Actually, that's why I avoid threads. I know for sure that if I relax, dive, I will be stuck for several hours, despite all my conclusions and conclusions. Therefore, my Facebook feed is empty, in the presence of one and a half thousand friends:
I'm not forcing anything on anyone, of course.
So, I dangled something, but I didn’t move on to the old books. Next time then - I will write the second part, otherwise it will turn out too long.
Source: habr.com